Memories Part 2
by Sparkle731
Summary: A glimpse into the life of Kenneth Richard Hutchinson as told from his POV. This story is complete.
1. Prologue

**MEMORIES ( PART TWO)**

**A Glimpse into the life of Kenneth Richard Hutchinson told from his POV.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Starsky and Hutch. Just borrowing them for fun.**

**PROLOGUE**

My name is Kenneth Richard Hutchinson but the only people who call me Kenneth are my parents. My younger sister calls me Ken. Everybody else has called me Hutch for most of my adult life. For the past ten years, I have been an undercover detective with the Bay City police Department. I'm good at my job but it's getting harder and harder to face going out there on the streets every day trying to get the bad guys.

To most people, I'm the last person they would expect to become a cop. My family had money, so I was raised with all the advantages that money can buy. Good schools, a nice house in a good neighborhood, nice clothes, all the good things in life. "Good Breeding" is what my grandmother used to call it.

My partner is always kidding me about having a certain "air of sophistication." and 'class" that shows through in the way I dress and the way I behave. I don't really see myself that way, although I suppose some of my tastes in music, clothes and literature are the result of my formative years. Engrained parts of my personality that I can not change. It took me years to find out who I really was and to be happy with my life the way it is today.

I've spent my life trying to make a difference. Sometimes I think I have at least with a few people I've known over the years. I'm not the same wide-eyed, idealistic young man I used to be. Too many years on the streets of this city have made sure of that. I've become bitter and disillusioned with a lot of things in my life. I've seen so much pain and suffering, so many people throwing their lives away for a fix and a cheap thrill, that nothing much fazes me anymore. Some days it takes everything I have to just get out of bed in the morning. Most of the time, I can't even remember why I ever wanted to be a cop in the first place.

The only thing that's kept me going has been my partner and my best friend in the whole world, David Starsky. He's as close to me as a brother, even closer actually. There's no way to explain the unique bond we share. We can communicate without speaking, almost on a psychic level. With just a look or a glance, we know what the other one is thinking. We feel each other's pain, each other's sorrow and each other's joy. Together we are complete. Apart, we are missing a vital part of ourselves. It's been that way almost since the first day we met fifteen years ago in the Police Academy. We would give our lives to protect one another and almost have more than once out there on the streets. I can not picture my life without Starsky in. Without him, I wouldn't have a life, not one worth living anyway.

I came so close to losing Starsky almost a year ago. The doctors told me he was going to die, that there was nothing they could do. The gunshots to his body had done massive damage and they didn't think it could be repaired. I refused to accept that. I couldn't face him dying and being left alone without him by my side. Through some miracle, he survived, even though he still has not recovered completely from his injuries. Coming so close to losing the one person that meant more to me than anything else in the world made me take a closer look at my own life.

I found myself thinking about the different events in my life that had shaped it and made me into the man I am today. And I realized that some things were more important to me than other things. I have some major life decisions to make and I hope that this look back on my life and the things I've done, the events that have happened that have changed my focus and my ideals, will help me to make those decisions with a clear mind. And maybe sharing my memories with you, will help me decide what I need to do next. So here, is a glimpse into my life, both past and present.

2


	2. The Hutchinson Legacy

**MEMORIES PART TWO**

**THE HUTCHINSON LEGACY**

I was born in Duluth, Minnesota. It is located at the westernmost tip of Lake Superior and is halfway between Minneapolis/St Paul and the Canadian Border. Originally settled by the Sioux and the Chippewa Indians, at once time Duluth was home to more millionaires (per capiti) than any other city in the world. Even today, most of the residents are of the city are fairly well to do. One out of every seven residents is employed in the healthcare field, including my father, Doctor Richard Hutchinson.

My father specializes in heart surgery. He has done very well for himself in that profession. My grandfather and my great grandfather were also doctors so it was a family tradition that I was expected to follow as the eldest son. That expectation was pounded into my head from the time I was a small child. My parents only had two children. Myself and my sister, Karen. She is five years younger than me so we weren't very close when we were growing up, although we are today.

My family had money and we lived quite well. By Duluth standards, our house was not a mansion but it was 'comfortable' We had a housekeeper who took care of the day to day running of the house, a nanny who supervised myself and my sister, and a caretaker who took care of the outside property. From an early age, my sister and I were taught to be competitive over achievers. I still tend to be that way even today. Striving to be the best in everything I do seems to be an inborn Hutchinson trait.

My sister and I seldom saw my father. He had a lucrative practice and spent long hours at his office and at the hospital. My father came from a generation who believed that children should be seen and not heard. When he was home, we were expected to be on our best behavior and not to speak unless we were spoken to. He was a strict disciplinarian and wasn't opposed to using the strap on me or my sister if he felt we were out of line. In our house, his word was final and you were expected to do things his way or not at all. It had been ingrained in my upbringing to obey my father without question.

Most of the time, I felt like I was a failure in my father's eyes. I never felt as if I lived up to his expectations for me as his son. Even though I was an honor student, active in sports and various other activities, I never received any praise from my father for any of my accomplishments. Richard Hutchinson was a cold, distant and overbearing man. He always succeeded in pushing my buttons and making me defensive Nothing I've done in my life has ever been good enough for my father but I still continued to jump through hoops trying to please him, hoping that someday I would make him proud. To this day, my father and I do not get along and we barely talk to one another.

My mother, Joanna Hutchinson, married my father when they were both in college. She came from a similar background except her father was a lawyer. My mother was involved in various charities, committees and the country club. She also did a lot of volunteer work. And, like my father, she had very little time to spend with her children. My sister and I were basically raised by our nanny and the housekeeper. Mother was seldom home during the day, although she was there in the evenings. She had a warmer personality than my father but still seemed mystified when it came to dealing with her own children. Mother was aware of her standing in the community and her social status. She reinforced impeccable manners and good breeding.

As a child, I had my own room with my own TV, my own stereo, and my own phone line. I went to the best private school in the area and my friends were carefully screened. But the one thing I never felt like I had was love. I can't remember either one of my parents ever telling me that they loved me or that they were proud of me. It was the nanny or the housekeeper that made my meals, got me up for school, took me to my various activities and tucked me into bed at night, not my parents. And I thought that was normal.

I inherited my good looks from both of my parents equally. My entire family was very attractive. Personality wise, I am more like my mother than I am my father. The only trait I share with my father is my aloofness with most people and a strong drive to succeed. As I got older, I began to resent my parents, especially my father, and the plans that he had mapped out for the rest of my life. But pride in the Hutchinson name, our social standing, and good breeding prevented me from rebelling against the Hutchinson legacy until I was old enough to leave home.

4


	3. College Days

**MEMORIES PART TWO**

**COLLEGE DAYS**

My first real battle with my father came about when it came time for me to go to college. He expected me to go to Princeton, his Alma Mater. But I had other plans. I still intended to go into Pre-Med, continuing with the Hutchinson tradition, and with my scholastic record, I could pretty much pick and choose which college I wanted to attend. And I intended to California State University, putting over 3000 miles between me and my father.

My father was not happy about my choice and made his feelings well known on the subject. But since I had been offered a full scholarship based on my academic record, his threat of cutting me off financially wasn't enough to stop me. In addition, my grandparents had left me a substantial trust fund that I would have access to when I turned twenty-one. Once my father finally realized that he couldn't stop me from going to the college of my choice, he reluctantly relented but he never forgave me for refusing to bend to his will.

When I moved to California and into the college dorm, for the first time in my life I found myself on my own, making my own decisions without my father watching every move I made. I had always prided myself on being more open minded and liberal than some of my friends back home but at home I still tended to blend in with my peers and follow a certain set of rules and expectations. Now, I was free to make my own rules and live by my own standards, making my own mistakes. I soon became involved in various 'causes' usually the ones that involved the rights of someone less fortunate than I had been.

I did not serve in the military like most young men my age. I was given a college deferment from the draft. Even if I hadn't been given a deferment, I have no doubt that my father would have found a way to ensure that his son was not drafted into the military. Like so many other young people my age at the time (especially college students) , I became very vocal about the military's involvement in Viet Nam, even participating in several peaceful youth rallies against the war. It wasn't until later in life when I met some men who had served in Viet Nam that I began to understand just how much they had sacrificed for their involvement in that war.

In spite of my outside activities, I still maintained a 4.0 average in my college classes. I carried a full class load and spent long hours studying to maintain my grades. School work had always come easy to me and I was blessed with an excellent memory, as well as a methodical and logical mind. The importance of a good education had been installed in me from an early age.

But that doesn't mean I didn't find the time to have fun. I had more than my share of dates. Girls had always seemed to be attracted to me but I could never be sure if they were interested in me because of my good looks, my family's money, or if they really liked me as a person. Sometimes, even today, I still don't know. For some reason I've always tended to be attracted to women who either overly possessive or cold and distant. Don't get me wrong, I love women and I respect them but my relationships just never seem to work out very well or to last for very long. Just another reason for my parents to be disappointed in me.

All in all, my college days were good ones and I grew tremendously as a person. I began to develop my own set of values and ideals that had nothing to do with those that my father held dear. Slowly, my image of myself and my life began to change. I was in my second year of college when I met Vanessa Lynn McDonald, the future Mrs. Kenneth Hutchinson.

6


	4. Vanessa

**MEMORIES PART TWO**

**VANESSA**

Vanessa Lynn McDonald. A chapter in my life I would rather forget but one that I have to include in the category of both some of my best and my worst memories. She was in a literature class I was taking and I was attracted to her immediately. But then, so was every other red blooded man in the room. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen with long dark brown hair and big brown eyes along with the face and the body of a high fashion model. She was actually doing some modeling on the side when we met.

I should have seen the signs right away but lust is blind and I ignored her shortcomings until it was too late. She was fun to be with and she knew just how to wrap a man around her little finger. She came from a similar background was the perfect blend of sophistication, cool perfection, and social status. With the contrast in our coloring, we made a very attractive and photogenic couple. Even back then, Vanessa was never one to pass up an opportunity to get herself noticed.

We had been dating for almost six months when Vanessa told me that she was pregnant. By then I was head over heels in love with her and her pregnancy gave us the perfect excuse to get married. Needless to say, my parents were less then thrilled but they liked Vanessa. That alone should have clued me in that I was making a big mistake. As far as my father was concerned, it was just another excuse for him to lecture me on my irresponsibility for getting her pregnant. As far as my mother was concerned, our wedding became the social event of the season and she went out all planning it down to the tiniest detail.

As a married student, I had to move out of the dorm. Vanessa and I rented a tiny efficiency apartment not far from campus and tried to adjust to our new status as married students. It wasn't long before Vanessa informed me that she was dropping out of college and that she expected me to continue to support her in the way she had become accustomed to. So besides being a full time student, I also took a full time job in the evenings working at a minimum wage job to support myself and my new bride. It wasn't long before we started fighting over Vanessa's outrageous spending. In less than six weeks, she ran my one credit card up to over two thousand dollars. She had expensive tastes, especially in clothes.

We had only been married for three months when Vanessa told me that she had decided she didn't want to have a child after all and that she'd had an abortion. I was stunned and deeply hurt. I didn't realize how much I had been looking forward to being a father until that was taken away from me. I suppose most men would have left her or even beat the hell out of her, but by then I was so wrapped around her finger that I was willing to let her walk all over me. I had always believed strongly in the sanctity of marriage and I was determined to make my marriage work, even if I was the one who had to make all the sacrifices to keep Vanessa happy.

And Vanessa was an expert at manipulating me. She knew just which buttons to push to get her way. She could be a cold, heartless bitch or a shameless seductress that knew every all the ways to please a man. If I wanted any peace in my marriage, I quickly learned to do things her way. I couldn't see back then what she was doing to my self esteem and to my confidence. Or just how much like my father she was. If our marriage was on rocky ground after less than a year, it was about to really hit the skids when I decided to drop out of college and join the police academy.

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	5. Disinherited

**MEMORIES PART TWO**

**DISINHERITED**

I was in my third year of college when I realized that I was totally dissatisfied with my life. I wasn't happy in my marriage and I was totally disillusioned with pre-med. When a police recruiter came to the college to speak to the students, I suddenly found myself thinking about joining the police force. The more I thought about it, the more the idea appealed to me. I thought that would be a way to really help people and to make a difference. Idealistic and simplistic but I really started to believe that was what I was meant to do with my life. Then an ex-girlfriend of mine got raped and I saw first hand how compassionate and concerned the cops were that dealt with her attack. That was the deciding factor that helped me make my decision. I wanted to be a cop.

Needless to say, that decision did not go over well with my parents or with my wife. My father disinherited me, wrote me completely out of his will, and swore that he would never speak to me again. His attitude did not surprise me or even really bother me. What hurt was when my mother took his side. And my dear wife, screamed at me for days and said that I was destroying her future and my own. But she didn't leave me, not then anyway. She was convinced that eventually she could get me to change my mind and see the error of my ways. Or maybe she just wasn't through making my life miserable yet.

To say that my life was pretty screwed up when I joined the police academy would be a vast understatement. That first day, I knew that I was totally out of my element and that I would have trouble fitting in with the other cadets. But that was also the day I met a cocky, self assured, displaced New Yorker who would become the best friend I've ever had. I noticed David Starsky right away. He was hard to miss. That man didn't just walk into a room; he strutted in with a confident swagger that automatically set him apart from everyone else. My first impression was that he was the most irritating and obnoxious man I'd ever met. It took me two weeks to find out that just how wrong my first impression of Starsky really was.

Starsky and I could not have been more different. Our backgrounds, our personalities, even our ideals were direct opposites of one another. While I came from what most people would consider a cultural background, Starsky was a pure product of the mean streets of New York where he'd spent his youth. His father had been a beat cop who was gunned down in the streets when Starsky was nine. His mother had sent him to California to live with his Aunt and Uncle when he was twelve to try and keep him from getting involved with the local street gang in his old neighborhood. He had also recently returned from an eighteen-month tour in Viet Nam. His military background had already given him a in depth knowledge of firearms and he was an expert sharpshooter, the best in our class.

Where Starsky seemed to get along with everyone in our class, I was a loner, sticking pretty much to myself. I know most of the other cadets thought I was overbearing and stuck up but the truth is I just didn't know how to relax and interact with them. There were three cadets, Billy Holmes, Scott Emerson, and Tommy Barnes, who decided to make my life hell in an attempt to get me to drop out of the academy. They began harassing me every chance they got.

I had motor oil poured on my dress uniform while it was hanging in my locker, I had unnecessary force used against me in some of the training exercises in the academy gym, I had vulgararities spray painted on my car, and I had textbooks torn up and destroyed. It all came to a head one afternoon in the locker room.

I was the only one in the showers when Billy and his friends came in. I tried to ignore them but before I knew it, they had me backed into a corner. Now I can hold my own in a fight when I have to, but Billy and his friends were all my size and outweighed me by twenty to thirty pounds. Still, I got in a few good punches before they got me on the floor and started beating the crap out of me. Next thing I know, I heard a cold, deadly voice say, "Is this a private party? Or can anybody join in?"

"Get out of here, Starsky." I heard Billy snarl through his teeth as he aimed a vicious kick at my stomach that knocked the wind out of me. "This ain't any of your business."

"How about if I make it my business?" Starsky said in that same calm but deadly voice. "Even up the odds a little?" His open challenge was all it took for them to forget about me and turn on him. Starsky was lithe and quick and he could fight as dirty as any street punk when the situation called for it. Within seconds, Scott was knocked out and lying on the floor at his feet. I staggered to my feet and took on Tommy while Starsky squared off with Billy. In a matter of minutes, the fight was over as quickly as it had began. Shoulder to shoulder, Starsky and I emerged as the victors. Billy and Tommy grabbed a still groggy Scott, turned tail and ran.

Grabbing my arm, Starsky led me out to my locker so I could clean up and get dressed. I had a split lip and a gash on my left cheekbone, along with some nasty bruises on my right side. Leaning back against his own locker which was three down from mine, Starsky watched me with a faint arrogant smile on his face.

"You handle yourself pretty good, baby blue." He said in his New York drawl. "But you really need to pick your playmates better cause those three don't like to play nice."

"Yeah, I noticed." I said in an irritated voice as I pulled on my pants and reached for my shirt. "Why'd you help me?"

"Seemed like the thing to do at the time." He replied with a shrug of his shoulders and a crooked smile. "I coulda just let 'em kick your ass."

"Why didn't you?" I snapped, "You don't like me any better than they do."

"Maybe I didn't wanna see ya get your pretty face smashed into the floor." He chuckled good naturedly "You got a lot to learn if you plan on working the streets otherwise you ain't gonna last long out there." I pointedly ignored him as I finished dressing, annoyed by his cockiness. He surprised me when he said, "Come on, slugger. I'll buy ya a beer." I was even more surprised when I heard myself accepting his offer.

We went to a bar not far from the Academy where most the cadets hung out after classes were done for the day. I was amazed to discover myself warming up to the curly headed man with the cocky attitude and the crooked smile. It didn't take me long to find out that Starsky had a unique ability to fit in no matter where he was and that he made a sincere effort to get to know the people around him. Underneath the tough, street smart exterior, he was actually a very complex and complicated man. I actually found myself liking him and enjoying the time I spent with him. I could talk to him more easily than anyone else I'd ever known, a rarity for me.

Over the next few weeks, I got to know Starsky even better and we quickly became friends. Since I was better at academics than Starsky was, I started helping him with the class work and his grades rapidly improved from just passing to being in the top ten in the class. In return, he helped me with some of the more physical exercises like hand-to-hand combat and defense techniques.

Being friends with Starsky helped me to fit in better with my fellow cadets too. I went from being a loner to being part of the gang. Slowly, I began to let down the walls that I had built around myself over the years and Starsky kept chipping away at the rest until there were no barriers between the two of us any longer. Starsky was the one who gave me the nickname 'Hutch', stating emphatically that Hutchinson was just too much of a mouthful and Kenneth sounded too formal.

It didn't take me long to find out that Starsky was a 'toucher', openly affectionate in a way that I was uncomfortable with at first. He had no hesitation about giving me a friendly pat on the back or even the ass, to sling his arm around my shoulders when we were talking, or to push himself into my personal space. Touching came naturally to Starsky and was just another facet of his unique personality. And with my 'sterile' childhood, I was an adult who was starved for that kind of touch and open expression of affection and friendship. Some of the other cadets who didn't care for me or Starsky (primary Billy and his group of friends) started vicious rumors about me and Starsky but we blew them off and didn't let the false accusations bother us.

Vanessa and I were still living together but our relationship as man and wife was pretty much over by then. She hated Starsky with a passion and he wasn't fond of her either. He could see through her and she knew it. She also knew that he was the one person she couldn't control and manipulate. The lines between those two were drawn early on and never changed. When Vanessa finally left me and filed for a divorce, Starsky was the one who was there to pick up the pieces when I fell apart.

God only knows why, but I was convinced that I still loved the woman. I realize now that it was more the idea of a failed marriage that I had trouble dealing with. Just one more thing for my parents to throw up in my face. It was a long and bitter battle to finally get free from Vanessa. She used every dirty trick she knew to try and get her hands on the bulk of my trust fund. It was during that time that I also found out that she had lied to me from the beginning about being pregnant and having an abortion. She had used the oldest trick in the book to get me to marry her and hadn't even been pregnant to begin with. When she found out she couldn't trust my trust fund, she settled for taking everything else she could, our furniture, my car, all the money in our joint account. By that point I didn't care, I let her have everything. I just wanted my freedom back. Our divorce became final just after I graduated from the police academy.

Starsky and I were on probationary status for eighteen months after we graduated. While Starsky was assigned to work the inner city, I worked in Venice and took an apartment for myself in that area. Even though we weren't working together during that time, we stayed in touch and our friendship continued to grow stronger. We started spending most of our off duty time together just hanging out. We both took the Sergeant's exam at the same time, just two years after we graduated and we both passed with flying colors. Starsky was promoted to Detective shortly after that, his long time dream, and was assigned to the Metro Division. I was promoted to detective a couple of months later and managed to get assigned to the same division.

Starsky and I immediately requested to be assigned as partners and after an initial training period with older more experienced detectives, our request was granted. We were assigned to a Zebra Unit, a unique and elite unit that dealt mainly with homicide investigations but covered over crimes as well. Each Zebra unit had its own assigned section within the district and Starsky and I were both proud to be designated as Zebra three.

We quickly started making a name for ourselves within the department. Because of our close friendship, we became one of the best teams in the entire department. We started taking on the tough cases and solving them. Before long, we had the highest conviction rate in the city. Our methods were considered unorthodox at best but they got results and we never stepped over the line. As our reputation grew, so did our friendship.

We became closer than brothers, joined at the hip, no longer just friends and partners but the other half of each other's soul. We had almost a psychic bond between us that tended to shut out everyone around us. We often finished each others thoughts or sentences and communicated in our unique form of shorthand, a simple glance or gesture and we instantly knew what the other one was going to do without speaking. Side by side, shoulder to shoulder, we were a force to be reasoned with and one that nobody dared cross. We were willing to die for each other to protect each other out there on the streets. Our lives had become so interconnected and entwined that it was hard to tell where one of us ended and the other one began. Me and thee against the world, that had become our motto and it was one that we lived by day by day.

There aren't any words to even begin to describe how I feel about Starsky or how much he means to me. I love the man. It's as simple and as complicated as that. As simple and as complicated as the man himself. I know his moods and he knows mine, we balance each other out and we bring each other peace. We comfort each other, we care for each other and we protect each other. We know each other inside and out. We've seen each other at our best and at our worst. We are the best friends either one of us has ever known or ever will have. Simply put, David Micheal Starsky is the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. He is the other half of my soul, without him I am not complete. We are true soul mates in every sense of the word.

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	6. Gillian

**MEMORIES PART TWO**

**GILLIAN**

After my failed marriage with Vanessa, I was definitely gun shy when it came to women. Not that I didn't date, I just shied away from getting too serious with any of the women I went out with. I had no intention of ever getting married again. Vanessa had torn out a part of my heart and left a hole that couldn't be filled.

I guess my taste in women left something to be desired. I seemed to have a tendency to attract every nut case and weirdo out there. One of the women I dated one time became fixated on me and actually came after me with a knife. She decided if she couldn't have me, then nobody could. Others were self-centered and shallow (almost perfect replicas of Vanessa) Most of the time Starsky and I both dated flight attendants. No promises, no commitments, no complications. Heck, Starsky and I even shared a woman between us a time or two.

Then I met Gillian. Gillian Ingram. She was a beautiful blue-eyed blonde with a lot of class. I actually met her at the park one afternoon where I'd gone on my lunch break while Starsky was busy testifying in one of our cases. We struck up a conversation and I was pleased when she agreed to go out to dinner with me. She told me that she was a free lance writer and I had no reason not to believe her.

I think I fell in love with her almost immediately. She was funny, she was intelligent and she made me happy. For the first time in years, I felt like a teenager in love again. And Starsky even seemed to like her when I introduced them at the bowling alley once night. And she seemed to like Starsky. That was a definite point in her favor because any woman who went out with me or Starsky soon discovered that we were a package deal and if they wanted to have a relationship with us, they had to accept our friendship and not get jealous or overly possessive when it came to our unique bond.

At the same time I was seeing Gillian, Starsky and I were also working on a case involving the harassment of some of the shops and businesses along "porn row". We got a tip about a woman named Grossman and her son who had come into town from Cleveland and were trying to muscle their way in and take over. Starsky and I went to a massage parlor where the Grossman's had their offices and had a talk with them. When we were getting ready to leave, Starsky decided to see if someone could give him a massage to try and work the kinks out of his shoulder that he had gotten bowling.

I agreed (remembering with a grin the girl who had 'volunteered' to help him with his shoulder and her voluptuous figure) I went outside to wait for him in the car. He came out a few minutes later and I noticed immediately that he seemed to be distracted. He hadn't gotten a massage after all. He said he couldn't find the girl who had offered and let it go at that. Now, I'd known Starsky long enough to know when to back off and let him alone. Something was up but he obviously didn't want to talk about it. I knew that he would when he felt like it and not before. Little did I know that my world was about to come crashing down around me.

Late the following afternoon, I got a call from dispatch for me to meet Starsky at Gillian's apartment. Puzzled, I drove over to her building, a high rise in a nice neighborhood, and parked behind my partner's car. When I got to Gillian's apartment, I found the door unlocked and went inside. Starsky was standing on the opposite side of the room, a stricken look on his face. Confused, I asked him what was wrong and then I saw Gillian's body lying on the floor beside him, the front of her blouse stained with blood. I'd been a cop long enough to know that she was dead.

I sank to the floor beside her body and pulled her close, all the while firing questions at my partner trying to find out what was going on. What he told me was the last thing I expected or wanted to hear. He told me that Gillian worked for Grossman and his mother. She was a high price prostitute who had come with them from Cleveland. I refused to believe him at first and in my pain and grief, I turned my rage on him, punching him in the jaw. Instead of punching me back which he would have under any other circumstance, he kept talking, telling me what he had found out about the woman I loved. Finally, I broke down, sobbing in his arms. It hurt so much to know that everything she had told me had been a lie.

Starsky told me that he had seen her at the massage parlor with a 'customer'. Later, he had gone to her apartment and confronted her. She promised that she was going to tell me when I saw her that evening. Starsky told her if she didn't tell me that night, he was going to tell me the next morning. We both knew that she must have told Grossman that she wanted out and that was what had gotten her killed. My heart was ripped apart but I was still a cop and I swore to bring Grossman and his mother down.

Starsky and I went after Grossman in a theatre that they owned, where he had a film playing when we arrived. A porn film starring my Gillian. He was shot during our confrontation and his mother was arrested. I found out later that Gillian had gone to Mrs. Grossman to tell her that she wanted out and that they had gotten into an argument. When she tried to leave, the older woman had tried to stop her and Gillian had slapped her so she could get away. Her son had gone after her when he found out and he was the one who had killed her. The case was solved but my heart was broken once more.

True to his nature and our relationship, Starsky was there to pick up the pieces and to help to put me back together again. But something inside of me had been broken beyond repair when it came to trusting women. Everything Gillian had told me was a lie and there was a part of me wondered sometimes if she had lied about loving me too. Starsky told me several months after she died that Gillian had made the comment when they spoke that it would be nice to be me and to have two people (Gillian and Starsky) who loved me so much in one lifetime. I may have doubted Gillian's love but I have never doubted the way Starsky feels about me because I feel the same way about him and I always will. Women may come and go but Starsky is the one constant in my life and for that I will always be grateful.

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	7. Betrayal of Trust

**MEMORIES PART TWO**

**BETRAYAL OF TRUST**

There was one woman who came dangerously close to destroying my friendship with Starsky. Another blue eyed blonde with a dynamite body. She was a police woman and her name was Kira Reynolds. Starsky and I had both seen her around headquarters around the same time and we both flirted with her outrageously. It wasn't the first time that we'd had a little friendly competition over the same woman but the situation with Kira got out of hand pretty quick.

Blonde dancers at a club downtown were being killed, so the department decided to send me and Starsky into the club as regular customers and Kira as one of the dancers to try and catch the killer. It was one of those clubs where the men paid to dance with the girls. I'm sure some of the dancers weren't above a little hanky panky on the side if the money was right but that wasn't why we were there, so we all kinda looked the other way on that score. We were there to try and find a murderer.

And even though I knew that Starsky had gone with Kira a few times, at the time I didn't see anything wrong with making a play for her too and she sure didn't seem to mind. She came on just as strong with me as she did with Starsky. And I fell for it. She was a very beautiful and very sexy woman. I knew that Starsky wasn't happy about it but for the first time in our relationship, I ignored my best friend's feelings and I went after Kira too. It wasn't long before Starsky and I were short tempered with each other and bickering almost constantly. But I can be as stubborn as my hot headed partner and neither one of us was willing to back down.

Finally, Starsky tried to work things out between us. He told me that he was in love with Kira and that he believed she was in love with him. I was shocked and surprised to say the least. And I was pissed. I was pissed because I thought that Kira cared about me too. So after I left Starsky that morning, I went straight to Kira's apartment.

When I told her that Starsky had told me that he loved her and asked her if she loved him, she just looked at me with a slight smile on her face and told me that she did love him. I was disappointed but I could accept that and I told her so as I turned around to leave. That was when she floored me by telling me that she loved me too. I stood there in stunned silence as I listened to Kira explain that she was in love with both of us and didn't see anything wrong with that. Somehow, she made her warped sense of logic sound reasonable to me. I'm not proud of myself and how I acted that day. I let other parts of my anatomy overrule my common sense and I ended in bed with Kira.

We had just finished making love and I was getting dressed when Starsky arrived unexpectedly. I will never forget until the day I die the hurt look on his face and the pain in his eyes when I walked out of her bedroom, stuffing my shirt into my jeans with half the buttons still undone. It doesn't take much for Starsky to blow up under normal circumstances and this was anything but normal. I had just betrayed my best friend. We got into a violent argument that soon led to punches. It would have been a lot worse except Kira intervened and ordered both of us out of her apartment. But the damage had already been done and Starsky and I weren't talking to each other.

But we were still partners and we still had to work together on our current cases, including the undercover assignment at the dance hall. Everyone around us steered clear, knowing immediately that Starsky and I were fighting with each other. When we went to the dance hall that night, Kira acted as if nothing had happened, acting the way she always did with both of us, which didn't help Starsky's mood or his frame of mind at all. And it didn't do much for me either. I hated fighting with Starsky and this time I knew that I had nobody to blame but myself.

We ended up catching the killer that night, a disabled Viet Nam Vet, who suffered from delusions and was killing blondes thinking in his warped mind that they were Viet cong spies who had dyed their hair. He almost killed everyone in the club when he threw a life grenade into the middle of the room. I shot him and Starsky grabbed the grenade, throwing it towards a back room where it exploded without injuring anyone seriously. Our case was officially closed but my relationship with Starsky was still shaky at best.

A few days later, Starsky and I both arranged to meet Kira at The Pits, a bar where we hung out downtown. I was the one who took the first step and apologized to my outraged partner. He was still deeply hurt and betrayed, with good reason, but agreed that our friendship meant too much to him to let a woman come between us. We both realized that Kira had used both of us for her own selfish reasons and had no intentions of making a commitment to either one of us. Unfortunately, Starsky was the one who got hurt by both of us. When Kira met us as arranged, we basically double teamed her and let her know in no uncertain terms that she couldn't have either one of us anymore.

We walked out of the bar that night with our arms around each other but it still took months for us to repair the damage that had been done to our friendship. I had hurt Starsky more deeply than anyone else ever had. I had betrayed his trust and that trust was a vital part of our partnership and our relationship. Even after Starsky had told me how he felt about Kira, I had still gone to her and let her seduce me into her bed. I'm not putting all the blame on Kira. I'm the one who chose to go to bed with her. Granted, I never expected Starsky to show up when he did and catch us but I still betrayed him, something I had never done before.

We had almost let a woman destroy the best friendship either one of us had ever had and we both regretted that deeply. Starsky forgave me because that's just the way he is. When he cares about someone, he is fiercely loyal to them and willing to overlook their faults. But down deep inside, there is still a part of myself that has never forgiven myself for what I did to him that day. I can be a selfish bastard at times and that character flaw almost cost me my best friend. Kira is a subject that Starsky and I carefully avoid discussing these days. She transferred out of the department shortly after that so thankfully she wasn't around as a constant reminder of my betrayal of my best friend's trust and love. I know that I don't deserve a friend like Starsky, not after what I did to him that day, but I thank god every day that I still have the right to call him my friend.

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	8. A Dark Day In May

**MEMORIES PART TWO**

**A DARK DAY IN MAY**

May 15th, 1977. The worst day of the life. A day that is burned into my memory and into my soul. It's the day that I almost lost my best friend. It's the day that Starsky almost died. It had started out just like any other day. They were painting the squad room so we couldn't really use to do our reports. Someone had moved in a ping pong table and Starsky and I were playing a game, teasing each other and bantering back and forth the way we always did. Starsky won and was clowning around about his victory as we left the building and headed across the police parking lot towards his car to head out on our usual patrol.

I was on the passenger's side of the car waiting for Starsky to unlock the doors so I could get in when I heard a crunching sound, the kind of sound a car makes when it hits another car. I glanced up in time to see a black and white pull out of a parking spot behind us, hitting the car beside it as it did. Instinctively, I screamed at Starsky to get down and hit the pavement myself, pulling my gun from beneath my jacket even as I fell. I heard the sound of several gunshots as the car roared past us. I sprang to my feet and fired after the other car as it disappeared out of the parking lot but the black and white was already out of sight. Suddenly, it registered in my mind that I didn't hear Starsky returning fire along with me.

"STARSKY!" I screamed as I ran around the front of the car "STARSK!" I skidded to a stop, my heart pounding with terror when I saw Starsky lying on the pavement beside the car, his head resting in the rear wheel well. The front of his shirt was soaked in blood and a puddle was rapidly forming beneath his still body. For a moment I was too terrified to move, to terrified to even breathe. I remember falling to my knees in front of him and reaching out with a trembling hand to press my fingers against the side of his neck. I frantically searched for a pulse, positive that he was dead. I let out the breath I didn't realize that I was even holding when I felt a faint, fluttering pulse beneath my fingers. He was still alive but just barely. He was rapidly bleeding out right in front of me. I could hear the rattling sound in his chest as he struggled to breath, a sound I knew far too well. The death rattle that someone makes as they are dying.

Suddenly, I became aware of people running towards us from every direction. Uniformed officers, undercover officers, Captain Dobey, the department Doctor. Somehow, they were all there, yelling orders and trying to access the situation. I felt Dobey taking my arm and gently pulling me to my feet, away from my dying partner. Briefly, I tried to struggle out of his grasp, desperate to get back to Starsky's side. I didn't want him to die alone and I knew that he was dying right there in front of me.

"Ken," Dobey said gently "Let them take care of him now…." My knees almost gave out on me as I leaned heavily against my Captain's side. An ambulance had arrived and the paramedics were frantically trying to access Starsky's condition and get him ready to transport to the hospital. I felt Dobey pulling my arm, leading me towards his car to take me to the hospital. I followed docilely, my mind numb and my body going into shock. I barely remember the ride to the hospital. I didn't even notice that I had Starsky's blood on my hands, my shirt and my jeans until we got to the hospital and I noticed the curious stares from other visitors as we stalked into the emergency room.

The Captain guided me over to a vacant sofa at the far end of the waiting room and we sat down to wait for the news that neither one of us wanted to hear. Within half an hour, the waiting room began to fill up with people as other officers began to show up to show their support for a fellow officer who had been mortally wounded. It wasn't long before Huggy Bear showed up to join us in our lonely vigil. It was almost two hours before a doctor finally came out through the swinging doors that led to the emergency room, his scrubs stained with blood, Starsky's blood. Before he could even speak, I was on my feet with the Captain by my side, demanding to know if my partner, my best friend, was dead.

I was amazed when the doctor told us that Starsky was still hanging on and had been taken to emergency surgery. He was the one who told us that Starsky had been shot three times in the torso and had lost almost half of his blood volume before he got to the hospital. Even though he was still alive, the prognosis wasn't hopeful. Even if he survived the surgery, he still wasn't expected to live through the night. The injuries were just too massive and too severe. His lungs, his stomach, and his kidney's had all been compromised. One bullet had actually grazed the sac that surrounded his heart. My heart felt like it was being ripped out of my chest, leaving behind a gapping hole, as my mind screamed over and over that Starsky was dying. He was dying and I had to accept that.

Seven hours later found me, Huggy and the Captain sitting in the hallway on the Intensive Care Unit, staring blankly through the large glass window that looked into the room where Starsky lay on the bed. He was as white as the sheets beneath him, being kept alive by the machines that surrounded the bed and monitored his vital signs. His stomach and chest was heavily bandaged and the respirator beside him forced the air in and out of his lungs. Somehow, he had managed to survive the surgery to repair the worst of the damage to his body but the doctors still believed that he was going to die. The human body can only stand so much damage and his injuries were so devastating and so life threatening, that we all knew we were on a death watch.

There is no way to describe how it feels to have someone tell you that you are going to lose the one person that means more to you than anyone else in the world. A part dies too, especially when the doctors keep telling you that there's no hope, no medical miracle that can save him. The pain cut so deep that I felt like I was dying too and in a way I was. When Starsky died, the best part of me would die too, leaving only a hollow shell of a man behind. I had already decided that I would stay there until Starsky drew his last breath and then I would leave and go home. And my life would end to, at my own hands. A life I no longer wanted to live if Starsky wasn't there by my side.

Sometime during that long lonely night, I got up to go to the men's room. I almost collided with an intern coming out. Excusing myself, I went into the bathroom and leaned heavily against the sink, splashing some water on my face and watching with morbid fascination as the water ran red, finally rinsing Starsky's blood from my hands. Glancing at my own harried face in the mirror, from the corner of my eye I saw a man's leg sticking out from underneath one of the stalls.

Spinning around, I shoved open the door to the stall and saw a man lying unconscious on the floor, dressed in white scrub pants and a tee shirt with a stethoscope hanging around his neck. I raced out of the men's room, my eyes scanning the hallway for the intern I had almost collided with on my way into the men's room. I saw him disappearing into a room at the end of the room and barreled down the hall after him. Somehow, my cop's mind knew that he was there to finish the job on Starsky. Bursting into the room, I grabbed him and slammed him back against the wall, relishing the look of fear I saw in his eyes.

He slammed his knee into my groin, catching me by surprise, and loosening my hold on him long enough for him to slip away. Even as I staggered out of the doorway behind him, I saw him running down the hallway with two uniformed officers running after him. Captain Dobey immediately got on the phone and ordered a round the clock guard on Starsky's room. Nobody was allowed in except me, Dobey, Starsky's doctors and his primary nurses. I realized that whoever had tried to kill me and Starsky was still out there and they were looking to finish the job. The one thing I could do, the only thing I could do for my fallen partner, was to find out who they were and bring them down. Then I could end my own life at least knowing that I had brought them to justice.

Captain Dobey decided to set up a temporary command post at the hospital so he would be there when Starsky died and I'd be free to see if I could find out who had arranged the hit. With Huggy's help, I found out the name of the woman who had paid for the hit and immediately went to her apartment. She refused to tell me anything but I had enough to arrest her for paying for the hit on the two of us. When I called the hospital to report in to Captain Dobey, he told me that I needed to get back to the hospital as quickly as I could. I knew immediately that he was telling me that it was almost over, that Starsky was dying and that I needed to be there to say good-bye.

I broke every speed limit in the book to get back to the hospital, slamming though the front entrance and running through the hallways like my life depended on it. I skidded to a stop in front of Starsky's room just as the doctor was coming out of the room. In a stunned voice, he told me, the Captain and Huggy that Starsky was still alive. Still not out of the woods but still alive. I wasn't sure what had happened exactly until after the doctor left and the Captain told me that Starsky had flat lined. His heart had stopped. The trauma team had worked on him for over six minutes before they finally got his heart started again, just as I arrived on the floor. I almost collapsed on the floor myself, as my adrenaline let down. I felt the Captain slipping an arm around my shoulders and leading me over to a chair. I followed blindly, my heart still pounding frantically and close to hyperventilating. I said a silent prayer in my mind, thanking god for not taking Starsky away from me. At least not yet.

Once I was certain that he was out of danger, at least for the moment, I hit the streets again. Over the course of the next two days, I found out that a man named James Gunther was behind the assassination attempt on Starsky and myself. Gunter was a powerful and ruthless man who had managed to stay one step ahead of the law for years. Nobody had ever been able to bring him down. But I did. With every resource at my disposal, I found the evidence I needed to connect him to the hired hit. And I made sure that I was the one who went to his office to arrest him myself. By the time I arrived, he was already expecting me. He had poisoned his right hand man because Starsky had survived the attack on his life and the other man's body was still sitting in a plush chair in the luxurious office when I arrived to arrest Gunther. Gunther had a gun but he wasn't used to getting his own hands dirty, he was used to hiring someone else to do the job for him, so it wasn't hard to overpower him. I had to use every bit of restraint I could manage to keep from killing the man with my bare hands. He had almost killed my partner, my best friend, and even though Starsky was still alive, it would take him months to recover from his injuries.

Starsky was in a coma for almost a week. I was with him when he opened his eyes for the first time after the attack and I had never felt such a overwhelming surge of relief in my life. I wasn't even aware of the tears that were streaming down my face when I saw those sapphire eyes staring at me. He was only awake for a few seconds before his eyes closed again but somehow I knew in my heart that he was going to beat the odds this time. He was going to live. In spite of the doctor's dire predictions, in spite of the massive damage he had suffered, he had survived. And I swore that I would be by his side to make sure he recovered from the attack, no matter how long it took. God had given us both a second chance and I intended to make the most of it.

Starsky was in the hospital for almost two months. He was heavily medicated most of the time and didn't remember the shooting or the first couple of weeks in the hospital. But he was still alive and that was the only thing that mattered to me. Captain Dobey agreed to put me on indefinite leave to care for him until he was back on his feet. He'd lost a partner that he cared about almost as much as I cared about Starsky and he knew how I felt. And even though he didn't come right out and say it, Starsky and I both knew how the Captain felt about us too. We were all family and we were all grateful that Starsky's life had been spared.

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	9. Aftermath

**MEMORIES PART TWO**

**AFTERMATH**

When Starsky was finally released from the hospital it was on the condition that someone could stay with him for awhile and that someone was going to be me. I had to be the one to nurse him back to health. I still blamed myself because I couldn't protect him from being hurt in the first place. He was still so weak and so vulnerable. He couldn't do much for himself at all and still needed almost constant care, care I was only too willing to provide. He had beaten the odds and survived even though the doctors had given him up for dead when he was admitted. He was their miracle patient and to me, he was just a miracle. I still had my best friend and my partner by my side in spite of all the odds against him.

He was still heavily medicated. He had to take pills to regulate his blood pressure, stool softeners, pills to keep his body from retaining fluids, antibiotics, pills to help boost his immune system, pills to help with his digestion, pills for his anxiety and panic attacks, pills to keep his lungs clear, and some heavy duty pain pills for the terrible pain he was still in from his injuries and the various surgeries to save his life.

He couldn't get out of bed by himself, or walk any distance at all. He couldn't go to the bathroom without assistance and I had to give him sponge baths since he couldn't take a shower or a bath until the stitches were all removed. Sometimes, he cried because the pain was so bad and the only thing I could do was curl up on the bed beside him and hold him to try and comfort him the best way I could. I gave him massages to work out the cramps in his legs and to loosen the knots in his muscles. I applied ointment to the healing scars to keep them from tightening up too much and I did the best I could to encourage him to eat so he could regain the weight he'd lost since the shooting.

Since he was on a restricted diet, it became a challenge trying to fix food that would tempt him to eat. He couldn't have any of his favorite junk foods and it became a real challenge to get him to eat enough to start to regain both his weight and his strength.

Some days the best I could hope for was to get him to drink the special milk shakes I made for him or to eat a bowl of his favorite ice cream. Even then, far too often, his body would reject the food I so patiently got down him and we'd have to start all over again.

His mother came to stay for six weeks to help out but I was still his primary care taker. But having her there did take some of the pressure off me and left me a couple of hours a day free to do the shopping and errands that needed to be done. Starsky still slept most of the time so I tried to plan my other activities around the times I knew he would be sleeping. Three times a day, I did range of motion exercises to keep his joints flexible and to help rebuild his muscle tone. I hated that most of all because I was forced to cause him more pain when I did the exercises, each time moving the joint a little farther than the last time to keep it loosened up. It was the hardest with his left hand and arm. He had very little use of that arm because one of the bullets had done so much damage to his left shoulder and since he was left handed, it was imperative that he regain use of that arm and hand.

At night I would lay awake beside him and listen as he struggled just to breath normally. The doctors still weren't sure if he would ever regain full use of his left lung or not. And regardless of how much lung capacity he did regain, he would always be more susceptible to lung infections. Even a simple cold could easily turn into life threatening pneumonia if he wasn't careful.

It was almost two months before he could begin the more rigorous physical therapy that he needed to regain his mobility and his stamina. It took that long for him to regain enough strength and lung power to be able to endure the more strenuous activity it would involve. Physical therapy began a new torture for my resilient partner. He had to attend daily sessions for almost six months, then they were cut back to twice a week for another three months. The sessions left him exhausted and in terrible pain. After a session, he would have to take a pain pill and then he would sleep for the rest of the afternoon. But Starsky is the most determined man I know and he fought with everything he had to give in order to recover. It was a long slow process but he prevailed. Six months after the shooting, he was able to care for himself again but I stuck around, unwilling and unable to give up my caretaker role completely.

I watched as he fought every step of the way to regain his strength, his stamina and his independence. And I was right there by his side every day, encouraging him and coaxing him, even bullying him when it seemed like he couldn't go on any more. I was there to help him through his bouts of depression and self pity and to rejoice with him with each new achievement. We became closer than ever during his recovery. It was hard for me when I finally realized he didn't need me as much any more and I had to back off, for his sake and for my own.

In a few weeks, he will go in front of the review board, almost a year after he was shot, to see if they will clear him to go back to active duty. I know that is what he wants but I'm terrified to see him back out there, putting himself back in the line of fire again. But either way, I will be there by his side no matter what happens. If he is cleared to go back on the streets, I will be there watching his back as usual. And if he can't go back on active duty, then neither will I. I will not work the streets with another partner besides Starsky. He knows that. We have already talked about it. Regardless of the outcome of the review board, he knows that I will always be there beside him.

Captain Dobey has already told us that if Starsky can't return to the streets, then he will contact a friend of his at the Academy to try to get us jobs there as instructors. It is an option that we are both considering. It was too close this time, I couldn't go through something like this again and neither could Starsky. I gave up my apartment and put my things in storage when I moved in with Starsky to care for him and we have discussed finding a larger apartment or maybe a house together once the review board makes their decision. I can't stand the thought of leaving him alone, our lives have become too closely entwined for that. Since the day we first met, it's been me and thee and it will continue to be that way for the rest of our lives, no matter what we end up doing. Maybe that has been our destiny all along. We've left our mark as policemen and found a enduring friendship and bond that will continue for eternity. Maybe that's what god had in mind for both of us from the beginning. I believe it is.

**THE END**

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End file.
